


The future is Death

by Aethelar



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Graves is Death, M/M, Master of Death (Harry Potter), One-Sided Relationship, The Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 18:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15540222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar
Summary: ladyoftheshrimpon tumblr pointed out that, based on JK’s often very literal naming process, it’s possible that the name Graves points to Graves being more than just the Director. That Graves could refer to actual graves in the actual ground.That Graves could, in fact, be Death.





	The future is Death

Gellert Grindelwald, sixteen years old and sulking as he sat through another divination lesson, prodded the shimmery silver surface with his wand. “Mirror mirror,” he mumbled, bored and sick of it. “Fuck this shit.”

He prodded again, too hard, and his wand skittered to the side leaving ripples in its wake. Grindelwald leaned forward, curious despite himself - only to grimace as the same man as always turned and glanced over his shoulder before fading away into Grindelwald’s own scowling reflection.

The same fucking man.

“You saw something?” the professor asked, striding over with barely concealed eagerness. Those with any sight of the future were rare, “To see where you destiny leads you, what awaits down the path - it’s a gift! Tell me, what did you see?”

Grindelwald pushed the bowl of silvery liquid away. “Nothing,” he lied. He turned away from his professor to stare resolutely out the window; in the corner where the candlelight reflected off the shadowed glass, the man stared back. Grindelwald glared. “Nothing at all,” he repeated again.

The man followed him into his dreams. Stalked through his visions, prowled the edges of every mirror Grindelwald looked into -

“You are not my future!” Grindelwald yelled once, knuckles bleeding from the glass he’d shattered with his fist. “I will be the Master of Death, I’ll be the shepherd that takes these sheep out of hiding, my future is more than just one man!”

Splintered between the cracks, the man tilted his head consideringly. He didn’t say anything. He never said anything. He just watched, watched and watched and  _watched_ ever since Grindelwald first sketched the symbol of the hallows in the condensation on the window and decided that he would be the one to unite them again.

The man had looked out of the symbol, curious, and Grindelwald had never got rid of him.

“Do you have them?” Grindelwald asked him once. “Answer me - answer me! Are you the one I’m going to take them from?”

No response.

“Antioch,” Grindelwald named him another time. “You’re Antioch Peverell, you are, I know you are - or, or Cadmus? Ignotus? Why won’t you fucking say anything, tell me who you are -”

He was something to do with the hallows. He had to be something to do with the hallows, but Grindelwald could find nothing to tell him what. Just, wherever he went, whenever he reached for the future in his visions or his scrying mirrors or  _anything_ , the man watched him.

Grindelwald left Durmstrang behind, left the war behind, went to England and left Dumbledore behind - he left everything and went in search of the three objects that would be his destiny and everything he did was weighed up, judged, and found wanting by a flicker in the corner of his vision.

And the worst thing? The worst thing was that the man never said a fucking word.

“You think I can’t do it,” Grindelwald accused once, hissing in anger at an empty shop window and the reflection only he could see. “You’re trying to take them from me, you’ll try to stop me - I’ll show you what I can do, I’ll show you. I  _will_  master death.” He weaved down the street, eyes roving from puddle to window to shiny metal street sign as he bared his teeth at the man in a hateful mockery of a grin. “I’ll show you,” he repeated, and tracked the Elder wand with feverish obsession to Mykew Gregorovitch.

The man watched from a polished silver tray as Grindelwald’s hand closed over the knotted wood, but it wasn’t until Gregorovitch fell to the stunning charm and Grindelwald felt the wand resettle itself under his command that he finally reacted.

Grindelwald froze, half in and half out of the window as the man grimaced in the glass. His face twisted as though in pain and the wand bucked once against Grindelwald’s grip - then man and wand were still, watching, waiting, wary and  _finally_ , Grindelwald understood.

“You’re my future,” he breathed, then laughed, covetous and mad. “My future, you’re my future - wait for me, my love.” He reached a hand out to the rain-soaked window and laughed again when the man flickered away in the raindrops. “Wait for your master,” he said, gentling the words into a promise.

And when he found the man in New York -

“You are no master of mine,” Graves swore, spitting blood and straining against his chains.

“My love,” Grindelwald crooned, “My future, my own, why do you fight what you know is inevitable?”

“I am the only inevitable I have ever met,” Graves answered, “And there are very few people who meet me without a fight.”

Grindelwald raised an eyebrow in reproach. “I’m not fighting, my one,” he said softly, almost wounded. As though he were the innocent party and Graves were the one at fault for hurting him.

“Then will you die?” Graves spat the question at him like a challenge, and Grindelwald couldn’t help but laugh in delight as he leaned forwards to confide:

“Just a little.”

He would be the Master of Death. He would command the hallows, he would save the world. He was confident in his answer.

Still, confidence wasn’t enough; Graves wouldn’t tell him where the cloak was, nor the stone. The elder wand may give Grindelwald enough power to  _hold_  Death, but without the other two hallows holding Graves was all he could do.

_Patience_ , he reminded himself. Graves was his future. Graves would be his. All he had to do was wait.

He bought himself time with golems, fashioning them to look like Graves and go to work in his place. Followed the golems up with automatons and decoys to imitate Graves and keep the aurors off his case - not forever, but long enough, he hoped. Death would yield, Grindelwald’s future would happen, Graves would break. Grindelwald would plan the next stage when he had Graves.

The golems rotted. The automatons shuddered to a halt and disintegrated. The decoys fell to their knees and died.

“Did you think I would be an easy thing to copy?” Graves asked mildly from his cage. He was hanging above the floor now, suspended in the middle of a gaping chasm hidden inside what still looked from the outside like an old townhouse. The shadows pooled beneath him, catching in the damp earth in puddles and rivulets like a spreading stain. He leaned back, affecting boredom and unconcern; the chain squeaked as the cage swayed, but the echoes were swallowed by the dark. “No one commands death well enough to mimic me.”

“I do,” Grindelwald snarled. He wasn’t fool enough to use polyjuice (Graves’ blood was red like any man’s was but it didn’t fade to brown; his hair was soft but when Grindelwald took strands for the potion it cut his fingers like wire) but his transfiguration was accurate enough. Graves had haunted him since he first learnt of the hallows - it’s a simple matter to slide into his mannerisms and soothe the doubts and fears away. Grindelwald had always been good at making people see what he wanted them to see. 

He was also good at seizing opportunity, and since he was there, since he had Graves locked away and Graves’ aurors were his to play with, he took the chance and ran with it. He wasn’t sure, sometimes, if he was more concerned with keeping Graves until he broke or with playing his games and furthering his cause in New York - but did it matter? He was winning on both hands.

(Beneath the transfiguration his face grew pale and bloated, his golden hair bleached of all warmth and light. His voice, without Graves’ rich tones to layer over it, was thin and dry, like too much old skin stretched over brittle bones, like something hollow and near its end.)

(In the waiting dark beneath the house Graves sat in chains in his cage, patient and silent as his namesake. The cavern stretched forward and back without end and the shadows under him flowed into a trickle, a stream, a river, ink-black and numbingly cold. “You really think you can control me?” he asked as Grindelwald waded waist deep through the water to approach him.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Grindelwald answered, madness and obsession warring in his honeyed promise. “So tell me, precious one, tell me what I need to know. Tell me where the hallows are.”

“You aren’t my master yet,” Graves denied and turned away. He dipped his hands down until his fingers almost touched the shadows. Almost. A few more days, perhaps. Grindelwald hauled himself out of the river and began the long climb back up to New York and Graves lay down on the floor of his cage with his eyes closed and waited.

Man cannot contain Death, only delay him. Whatever man does, however man tries, Death is waiting for him in the end.

The river swelled and the waters rose and Graves allowed himself to smile. He’d watched Grindelwald for long enough; he’d made his decision.

Grindelwald would never be the Master of Death. Once Graves was free, he’d chose someone else to take the Elder wand. Perhaps that person would be his master, perhaps not; Graves was willing to wait and see. Either way, Grindelwald’s time was up.

For all his patience, Graves could barely wait.)


End file.
